Three overripe syrahs: 05 ESJ Parmalee, 10 Clarendon Hills, 10 Voge

In one of those delightful coincidences, we had three syrahs back to back in my brown-bag group. We don’t know what anyone else is bringing, so this was by chance (once we had six or seven pinots), though the folks who brought the second and third wine did feel theirs should come later among the reds. They were right. (These were the fourth through sixth of seven wines.)

Sadly, these were all too ripe, to the point where the syrah character was diminished.

2005 Edmunds St. John - Parmalee Hill - Sonoma - Syrah: I tasted this on release and went in an order with Jay Miller. I last opened a bottle about five years ago and found it surprisingly fruity – plummy, to be specific. It has not improved. I have little experience with ESJ Parmalee Hill, but this was out of keeping with what I know of Steve Edmunds’s wines. Dark in color, the nose was mostly blackberries. In the mouth, there were ripe black cherries – like the ones that fall off the pits. Grapy in a pleasant way, though a bit surprising for a 15-year-old wine. Rich and spicy, too. Several people guessed Hermitage, though it seemed distinctly New World to me. It remained a bit disjointed, particularly on the finish, where the alcohol and tannin stood out later (five hours after decanting). Not the savory kind of syrah I expect from ESJ. 86 points for me.

2010 Clarendon Hills - Clarendon - Bakers Gully - Shiraz: Gag me! Port on the nose, then blackberry pancake syrup. Maybe a streak of blueberry syrup on the nose. In the mouth, sweet and porty (cooked fruit) and alcohol. (Labeled 14.5%.) Pretty much undrinkable for me. Later it tightened up, the fruit receded and the tannin came to the fore. Oh, joy! On the finish, tannin and alcohol later.
What do I mean when I say, “This wine is undrinkable?” (to answer the question raised in another recent thread)? This kind of wine. From a laboratory standpoint, I’m sure it’s sound and clean, but it’s so overripe that all varietal character has been lost (I thought it might be a zinfandel) and it’s unbalanced. I do not want this in my mouth or gullet.
I dumped most of mine though, with a certain sense of dread and Schadenfreude, I went back for more later, after everyone had left, just to confirm that this was as bad as I thought originally.
I don’t know how to put a wine like this on a the conventional 100-point scale.

2010 Alain Voges - Cornas - “Les Vieilles Vignes”: Inky, almost opaque. Slightly skunky/sulfuric/reduced on the nose, though that didn’t particularly bother me. It was the first tip-off that this was a syrah. Some ripe black cherry came up after that. After tasting, I wrote: “Big, but less disgusting syrah [compared to the Clarendon Hills before it]. Very ripe, chewy, fruity, soft tannins.” I guessed a syrah of 10-15 years, but I wasn’t sure where it was from. With air, it got tougher, more tannic. It’s so ripe that the fruit is imprecise, and not nuanced. No lift. On the finish, the fruit seems very ripe, and a bit out of balance, and there’s a trace of heat. This seems like a Cornas for New World syrah lovers. Not typical at all of the appellation, and not particularly interesting. 83/84 points for me.

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Tell it like it is John! And thank you for that. Haven’t had any of these but will avoid thanks to your notes. I have had the Voge from 2007 which was very ok but not exciting. Maybe a label to steer clear from.

Sad all the way around but the note on the Clarendon Bakers Gully cracker me up. Thanks for taking one (or three!) for the team.

Parmelee-Hill (yes, it’s spelled that way on the label) never really seemed like an ESJ Syrah from the get-go. It was always richer/fruitier.

Not a site that really worked with Steve’s style.

Not particularly surprised by the Clarendon. Both times I had one (from earlier vintages) it was overwrought making you feel like a cheap date in a dive bar kind of way.

The 07 Voge vv to my tastes wasn’t horrible but did channel a riper, more modern interpretation of Cornas, rather the same way Gilles can get.

Do you think most 15 N Rhône are overripe?

I guess this is sort of a calibration question. I’ve found the 12 voge vv to be very good and have found most 14 n. Rhône to be overly thin so I’d probably like the 10 voge vv then.

And you feel bad when you wake up in the morning.

2010 is not a “ripe” vintage tho. I think Voge is pretty ripe and glossy.

Many or most of the '15s I’ve had were a tad riper than I like. Across the board, I’ve preferred the '16s, which I’ve found to have more “precision” (a bit more acid and fresher, less ripe fruit). But I don’t consider '15 a bad vintage; it’s a matter of preference. And I liked some of the cheaper/lower level wines. The only '15 I can recall finding overripe was the Jaboulet Dom. Thalabert Crozes, which bordered on jammy on release.

I was surprised at the ripeness in the Voge from 2010.

Hope that helps put my comments in context.

None of these sound overripe. They just sound fruity. So you don’t like fruit and prefer the savory elements.

On the Clarendon Hills (caveat, I’ve never had it), I’m reminded of a recent thread on “ooze monster Aussie shiraz” and someone asked whether things had gotten dialed back. The point is, very ripe, jammy, fruity shiraz IS the terroir (of Barossa and McClaren Vale; I’m aware that Australia is a big continent and they can do lots of different kinds of wines there). So, no, don’t expect something other than very ripe, jammy fruit.

2010 was definitely a big vintage, maybe not “ripe” in the sense of 15 and 09. Couple that with Voge’s house style to be on the riper end in any vintage, and you get what John described. Also consistent with the scores the Voge wines received in that vintage. Though, I’ve never thought that Voge was out of balance, just a producer that leans bigger and riper.

You don’t think sweet, porty and cooked fruit (the Clarendon) qualifies as overripe? That’s kind of my definition.

The ESJ or Voge were at a level of ripeness where it’s a matter of preference. They were a bit too ripe for my tastes, but I wouldn’t (and didn’t) label them as “overripe.” But, knowing ESJ wines and Cornas, these are pretty far over on the ripe end of the scale.

I don’t think ripeness at the level of this Clarendon is an inevitable product of where it’s grown. I don’t find the Penfolds wines overripe, for example. The Clarendon Hills are close to the ocean, so I’d think they would be cooler than Barossa, which is somewhat inland. And I’ve had one or two mature Clarendons that were not as over the top as this, and were decently balanced in a pretty ripe style.

The point is, very ripe, jammy, fruity shiraz IS the terroir

All of these wines sound as though they’d make excellent after-dinner ports [with chocolate desserts].

And for many palates, they’d probably be perfect alongside a great big very-rare steak & mashed potatoes [with gravy] & green peas [where you can also let the green peas soak up a bunch of gravy] and of course myriad cow-udders’ worth of butter dripping all over everything.

The key is to serve these kinds of wines as & where & how they ought to be served.

Good point about the Penfolds. But like Penfolds, Clarendon has a particular style and they’d be foolish to change. Same with a producer like Caymus. They’ve found a market and they’re selling out, so why mess with success?

I’ve had a number of Clarendons over the years so I wondered if I’d had yours.

Aha! I found my notes from back in 2014, but they were for the 2007 version.

“Initially has a fairly inviting nose with some spice and a bit of a meaty note hidden in some big fruit. Palate strange - a big wine with some acidity but nothing that stands out except for a nasty medicinal quality. Some tannins on the finish. As disappointing as the Grenache was. Not that great a wine and certainly not worth more than the discounted price, if that.”

Then the next and last bottle some friends wanted to try was like this:

“Sweet and also bitter. Weird combination. Not good.”

I guess we had similar reactions. If I recall correctly, the rest of that bottle became cooking wine. I know absolutely nothing about the wine making, but it seemed that they had this over ripe fruit and they acidified it and basically came up with a mess. If that’s not what they did, that’s even worse, because it means they made a horrible wine quite naturally! And I think it’s the latter because supposedly he does “natural” wine, with no yeast inoculation, no fining or filtering, etc. He’s a biochemist, but a self-taught wine maker.

I’m not in the least averse to fruit or Australian wines, but the Clarendon style just didn’t seem to work for me. They used to get these huge ratings, generally for their Grenache, but I never really understood those ratings. I think it’s more because of the story and marketing - something like 98 pct of their wine is exported since he doesn’t think Australians understand it. That may well be true. Apparently some Americans don’t either!

Surprised about the Parmalee Hill, although it’s been years since I’ve had one.

Hey, it’s their right to make a wine in any style they like, just as it’s my right to dislike it!

Ripe fruit is sweet. Cooking (or roasting) fruit makes the fruit sweeter. So “ripe,” “sweet” and “cooked” with respect to fruit are for me matters of degrees. Cooking and roasting fruit also breaks down the structure of the fruit, so it ceases to be, for lack of a better word, fresh. For that reason, I’m not a huge fan of cooked or roasted fruit, despite my fondness for sweet things. When I see “roasted” or “cooked” in reference to wines, I wonder if they mean the wine is sweet tasting or lacking in freshness (i.e., sort of dull).

I’m not sure we’re disagreeing, except that you said that my descriptions didn’t make these wines sound overripe. So far as I’m concerned, in a dry wine, “porty” notes are pretty much synonymous with overripeness. Cooked fruit flavors, too, in most cases. And those were my descriptors.

And, as I noted, this also tasted sweet, though that could just be due to the alcohol, which can give a wine a sweet impression even if there’s no residual sugar. (I have to think this Clarendon was well over the marked 14.5%.)

Uh, the title of the thread is “Three overripe syrahs…”.

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Well, there was that. [truce.gif]

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Agreed that 2010 is not an overly ripe vintage. That said, I opened a 2010 Graillot Saint Joseph about a year ago and it was much more dense and extracted than I usually find the Graillot wines or expected from a 2010.